R.I.P - Howard Morris

[Ozzymandias]

Howard Morris passed away. He was on the Your Show of Shows in the 50's (one of his best bits was in a parody of This is Your Life ), in the 60's he was crazy, rock-thrower Ernest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith Show and in the 70s he was in several Mel Brooks films as well as doing varrious cartoon voices (Jughead on Archie and I believe Atom Ant .

[trekgeezer]

It's me! It's me! It's Ernest T!  I loved when Andy made him the school crossing guard, whe people didn't stop they got a brick through their back window.

He only appeared in 7 episodes of the Andy Griffith show, but he created  one of the most memorable characters of the series.

He was also a TV director and did episodes of Andy Griffith, Gomer Pyle, The Love Boat, and a lot of others.

[Ozzymandias]

I know he directed the pilot of Get Smart and maybe other episodes. He also directed the McDonaldland ads of the 70s. Apparently, King Moody ( Get Smart and Teenagers from Outer Space ) told McDonalds folks he had "friends" who would like to work on the development of the ad campaign. They were surprised the friends would be Howard Morris, Larry Storch and Ted Cassidy. Morris acted in a few as a character called the Professor.

[Yaddo 42]

I saw him and the actor who played Otis on one of those cast reunion shows. They were joking about how even though they had recorded thousand of bits of audio for McDonalds ads, many lines hundreds of times, they would still have to come it and record new versions of those lines for ads constantly. Otis was the voice of the drink in the talking Happy Meal ads for years. Howard Morris demonstrated his Hamburglar voice, and asked how many times did they really need him to record "Rubble rubble" since it sounded the same in all the ads.

It does say something when you can be a rare guest star on a long running series, and be as well remembered as the regulars in the cast. Ernest T. is pratically a saint where I live.

Howard Morris you will be missed.